


Dearheart, it's me (you don't need to pretend to be someone you're not)

by notebooksandlaptops



Series: The Amazing Devil inspired prompts [3]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Angst, Bathing/Washing, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Being an Asshole, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Being an Idiot, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Jaskier | Dandelion, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Protective Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, but he's not allowed to hold either Yen or Jaskier's until he apologises, geralt has two hands, no beta we die like renfri, yennefer loves jaskier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23773399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notebooksandlaptops/pseuds/notebooksandlaptops
Summary: “Are you going to join me?” He asked.“No,” she responded, and instead she conjured a stool and took a seat behind him. “Tip your head back – without the dramatics, if you please. I have no use for them.”A flicker of something real crossed his face, “Yennefer, you don’t have to—”“I want to,” she cut him off, “head back,” her fingers moved to gently lay against his cheeks to guide him just so. She brought her own oils to hand, the scent of lilac thickening the room as she removed the cork and began massaging it into his wet hair.Funny, wasn’t it? How tenderness, gentleness, could, in the end, prove more liable to shatter than violence? She could see the beginnings of it bleeding onto his face, his emotions catching up with him as she helped him wash.-///-Or, Geralt and Jaskier have a fight. Yennefer takes care of her bard.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: The Amazing Devil inspired prompts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1693501
Comments: 48
Kudos: 745





	Dearheart, it's me (you don't need to pretend to be someone you're not)

“How does it make you feel, _Witcher_?” her words are hissed, sharp like the edge of a blade, “Does it make you feel _tall_? Feel _strong_? Does it make you feel _powerful_?”

“Yennefer, you know I don’t—”

“ _No_. Keep your fucking mouth shut, Geralt or I swear by the Gods I will sew your lips together myself. At least with grunts alone, you cannot play this game of seeing how hard you can kick our bard before he breaks _,_ ” Yennefer was seething. Her whole body was a tense line. There was lightning in her fingertips and oh one might _wish_ that was a metaphor, but it was wrathfully literal.

The witcher squared his shoulders. Quiet. Still. Resigned. And – in the way his gaze lay downcast - _Guilty._

_Good._

Posed with her chin held high, she collected herself before she could do something she might regret. She was _vengeful,_ in her spite _._ If she stayed in this room, she could not trust she would not hurt him.

“I have watched you do this more than once,” her words were whispers. Somehow, that was worse than if she was shouting, “You take your anger out on him, with the knowledge that he will return to your side faithfully as ever. But this is the last time. If you do this to him again I will take him, and I will take Ciri. We will not come back _._ ”

Geralt took a step forward, “Yen—"

“Stay. here.” She clenched her fists, “Me and Jaskier will be renting our own room tonight. Don’t expect to see us till morning,” she turned to leave, but paused with her fingers on the doorframe, casting one final look over her shoulder and fixing him with a glare, “and don’t expect to see us at all if you’re not grovelling on your knees for his forgiveness.”

She didn’t bother to stay and listen to whatever arguments or regrets spewed from his lips. She didn’t need to. She knew the script; they’d played this game before. For years now, she had stood by Geralt and Jaskier, watching Ciri grow into the powerful young woman she was today.

Usually, she would call her boys a blessing.

But this? This _thing_ Geralt did where he raged against their little lark? As though Jaskier – a mere _human_ who had put his fragile little life on the line to save the continent at Geralt’s side – didn’t deserve more?

It made her sick.

Taken for Granted, that’s what Jaskier was at Geralt’s hands. And it had to stop. Jaskier was not some _rag doll_ to be loved only when it suited and thrown away when not. He was not a pitiful thing.

She would not see him treated as the _pig_ that she herself had once been. Not by anyone. Not even by Geralt.

The molten anger that ran in her veins was all-encompassing. The fragile grip on her emotions Tissana had drilled into her during her youth was the brick wall against which the storm of her anger was brewing. Everything felt _dark,_ tinged in shadow and fury.

Which is why it was such a jolting juxtaposition to get to the bottom of the stairs and find Jaskier singing some bawdy little tune.

The inn doubled as a tavern and a tavern was as good a workplace as any for a bard. Perhaps it was even the _best_ workplace, at least for their little lark. She had seen Jaskier perform in courts and fine palaces, on the side of roads and in the hollow chambers of Kaer Morhen. But it was in a _tavern_ that he truly came to life. He shone, tempting laughter and coin alike from strangers, flitting from table to table, voice interweaving with the merry sound of conversation. He had the uncanny ability to keep a tavern feeling light and juvenile even when monsters were afoot in the darkness of the night.

Yet she had expected to find him brooding into a mug of ale. Not—this. Dancing from table to table as if he hadn’t had a blow out with Geralt upstairs barely half an hour ago.

She allowed her gaze the pleasure of tracking him freely, though she still went about her business for the evening. She had learnt that it was best not to interrupt Jaskier mid-song unless she wanted to invoke his ire (something that had once been fun to tease from him, but now was only done in jest).

So she waited, retrieving a key for a second room from the maid behind the bar and called for a bath to be brought to their room.

The set was long enough, and Jaskier was taking sips of whatever was offered to him in-between songs. She was not sure that he even saw her – in fact, she wasn’t sure if he even saw anyone. There was a far-away look in his eyes and something a little too loud in the way he clapped hands on people’s backs, in the way he’d carry certain notes just _slightly_ too long.

When he set his lute down, she did not miss the way his fingers rubbed together, quick and persistent. Jaskier’s little nervous tick.

“Jaskier,” she murmured, at his ear.

She had approached swiftly, but she had made no effort to be silent. Yet still, he jumped slightly.

He had such bravo, such presence, such charisma.

How many people here could see right through it all, she wondered, into the depths of that bleeding heart?

There was an odd thrill in knowing that the answer was more than likely none of them. None of them apart from her.

“Yen, ah, I was just about to play another—”

“No, you weren’t. Come along.”

Jaskier fidgeted, just once, and yet the smile he placed was almost as bright as if it had been true and not born of an infantile need to placate, “I don’t think it best for me to come to our rooms—”

“We won’t be. We have our own room tonight, and a bath drawn. Hurry up.”

She could see his hesitance, braced herself for the likelihood of an argument. But the indecision that flashed across his expression was only momentarily. He picked up his things, ready to follow after her.

Yet, she had no desire to have him trail behind her as a puppy.

Where those in the inn seemed naturally charmed by Jaskier, and naturally scared of Geralt, she was subject to that tantalising, infuriating mixture of lust and nerves. (Sometimes she wondered if that was why they masqueraded beautifying girls as a gift in Aretuza; a powerful yet pretty woman might be deemed sexy but a powerful ugly one was nothing but dangerous.) Here and now, she felt the glances thrown at them, the confusion at their relationship perhaps. She ignored it.

Tonight was not for curious peasants.

Tonight was not for Geralt.

Tonight was for Jaskier, plain and simple.

The room when they arrived was far grander than this quaint little village could even have imagined, let alone built. The bath steamed though the water had been poured long enough ago that such a thing should not be possible, and the bedsheets were of purple dye too expensive to waste on an inn bed.

And there was lightening under her fingertips, a storm in her mind, but it was quietened somewhat, by the need to comfort. She hadn’t had much need of the impulse before she met her two lovers, nor had she wanted it. But for Jaskier, she had learnt the language of it, even if it was a language she adapted to her own crude renderings.

She knew what he needed, and that would have to be enough.

And _yet._ He was perched on the edge of the bed she had conjured to his liking and he was still smiling.

She hated that smile. It curved his lips as if painted there, at home in the confident bravo that he emanated. But it was an illusion, a falsehood, art created for the pleasure of the admirer instead of capturing the truth of the subject.

“The bath is for you,” she pointed out, watching to see if he would crack.

“My darling dear, you didn’t have to go to all this trouble. A bath and a pretty bed, are you trying to seduce me?” Jaskier actually fucking batted his eyelashes, though his fingers were starting up their nervous dance again.

“Jaskier,” she pressed, taking a step forward and yet when she did, he danced back, standing and beginning to strip himself.

“Ah, well, I suppose if you want me all wet and willing, I can be,” he winked.

It was odd that he slipped into this so easily, slipped into a childish desire to please. Well. She supposed broken childhoods might do that to you, and an ungrateful lover.

He sank into the bath and let out a tiny moan at it, but it was performative, so she dismissed it. She had no need for his show however good he was at putting it on. Not now. Not tonight.

“Are you going to join me?” He asked.

“No,” she responded, and instead she conjured a stool and took a seat behind him. “Tip your head back – without the dramatics, if you please. I have no use for them.”

A flicker of something real crossed his face, “Yennefer, you don’t have to—”

“I want to,” she cut him off, “head back,” her fingers moved to gently lay against his cheeks to guide him just so. She brought her own oils to hand, the scent of lilac thickening the room as she removed the cork and began massaging it into his wet hair.

Funny, wasn’t it? How tenderness, gentleness, could, in the end, prove more liable to shatter than violence? She could see the beginnings of it bleeding onto his face, his emotions catching up with him as she helped him wash.

It wasn’t something she would debase herself to for many others, this caretaker role. She knew it was expected of women up and down the continent and it filled her with indignation to think of how many did it out of some fucked up sense of duty or fear. Such uses sullied what it was. She did this for him now because downstairs she may inspire lust and nerves, but Jaskier? Jaskier _knew_ her. He loved _her._

And so, she would love him back.

She leaned close when she was finished, her lips brushing his forehead, “it’s me, Jaskier. Don’t pretend to be someone you are not. I’ve been woken by your snoring, and I’ve had to suffer your farts, I can handle your feelings. No more bravo.”

And finally, the mask slipped.

It was heart-breaking, truly, to see the way his face fell, the stuttering breath he let out, the way one of his hands reached upwards to take one of hers in its own and only when their fingers were clasped did its shaking ease slightly.

She said no more as she helped him from the bathtub, helped him dry, pulled him towards the magnificence of that bed. She dropped her own clothes to the floor, but there was nothing seductive in the motion. She didn’t wish for there to be, not now. She knew what he needed, and it wasn’t the sweetness of their bodies together, however delicious a concoction that was.

Her lips brushed his forehead once more, and he curled into her, rested his head against her breast.

“You cannot let him treat you like that anymore,” Yennefer murmured, after a moment.

She felt Jaskier’s shoulders tense, “he’s…complicated, he doesn’t mean—”

“It doesn’t matter whether he means it or not. He has no right. You deserve better. Demand it.” She tugged him closer, the softness of their embrace counteracting the bluntness of her words.

He doesn’t argue, she’s pleased to hear, but he’s still unusually quiet. She takes to brushing her fingertips through his freshly washed hair. It’s damp, and it’s wetting her skin, but it’s only a mild discomfort easily countered by the pleasure of having him resting against her.

“Sometimes he’s right,” Jaskier muttered, and it was so quiet that she might have missed it.

She snorts. It’s almost laughable.

“Yen,” he pulls back slightly as if to look at her, but his face is downcast “I mean it. I’m hardly the most _valuable_ member of our group. Don’t you think I see it? I’m not _blind,_ Yen. You and Geralt would get on quite well without me. There are times when I _do_ just get in the way.”

It doesn’t suit him, this self-doubt, but it is uniquely his and so Yennefer doesn’t comment on that.

“Do you truly think that I love you any less than I love Geralt?”

“That’s not what I—”

“Then don’t accuse me of it.” She shifted, waiting for him to settle back down. Eventually, he did, “aren’t half your silly songs about how love is _in_ valuable or whatever nonsense?” She closed her eyes.

Jaskier mumbled something of an agreement.

“Well then,” she wrapped arms around him again, “I’m here. Apparently, this is where I’ve chosen to make my life. I’m always going to be here. So quit worrying and letting Geralt get to you,” she ground her teeth, “if he dares again, I am going to cut off his dick.”

“Be a bit of a shame. He has a lovely dick,” Jaskier hummed.

And there they could agree. But she’d still do it, by the gods. Lightning in her fingertips, thunder in her veins.

“Yen?” Jaskier hummed, after a few moments. “Thank you.”

-///-

Come morning, Geralt apologised.

Jaskier had become used to this cycle; of apologises and hurt. But the look in Geralt’s eyes? Whatever Yennefer had said to him yesterday, whatever Jaskier had said to him this morning, it had got through his thick skull.

Jaskier was pretty sure there wouldn’t be a repeat of this again.

**Author's Note:**

> I now take tumblr prompts for cute lil ficlets like this! If you're interested [@Jaskier-wearing-dresses](https://jaskier-wearing-dresses.tumblr.com/) just drop one in my inbox :) (or just come say hi in general, always happy to make new witcher friends)
> 
> Toss a comment or a kudos to your fanfic writer?


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